Okay, so its not 1980 v. The Red Army but this is as big as international hockey competition gets.

The US has been the surprise team of this tournament going 5-0 to this point and securing the number one seed. The team has pretty much been what GM Brian Burke and Coach Ron Wilson built it to be, big and strong, timely scoring, solid defense (which has gotten better as the games have gone on) and outstanding beyond belief goal tending. 60 more minutes of that and the US will have gold.

I stand by my thought following the Canada-Slovakia game the 1st goal today is going to be big. Canada has to be a little tight coming out with the pressure of expectations, the home crowd and last Sunday's loss. Add all that to a piss poor 3rd period against Slovakia that almost cost them their shot at gold and this could be a fragile team. Get the first goal against them and the US might be able to put them away. Conversely, the US hasn't trailed all tourney. If Canada scores first, the building will go nuts and the US will have to make a comeback. I think the US is better suited to survive falling behind but Id prefer they didnt.

As I said, this isnt 1980 and these arent the Soviets but in some ways todays game is going to be nastier fights between friends and family always are. Given that, heres what I want the US to keep in mind .

Polls say the public wants a truly bipartisan compromise -- and, if that's not in the offing, 75% or thereabouts say the bill should not be passed. But the Democrats refuse to start the process over, therefore insuring there will not be any "bipartisan" compromise on the bill they're preparing to ram through on a party-line vote.

How to square the circle? Well, how about if we redefine "bipartisan" as "intensely partisan on a party-line vote."

I thought Nancy Pelosi's claim that she "shares some views" with the Tea Partiers was the stupidest spin we'd hear from her today.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that Republicans have left their mark on the healthcare bill and should accept that the bill will go forward.

"They've had plenty of opportunity to make their voices heard," she said on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday morning. "Bipartisanship is a two-way street. A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes. Republicans have left their imprint."

As soon-to-be former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says: Never let a crisis go to waste.

Democrats might as well take advantage of their crisis, Speaker Pelosi thinks.

Incidentally, it is "Speaker" Pelosi. As opposed to "Thinker" Pelosi.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.

Lawmakers sometimes must enact policies that, even if unpopular at the moment, will help the public, Pelosi said in an interview being broadcast Sunday the ABC News program "This Week."

"We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress," she said. "We're here to do the job for the American people."

...

It's unclear whether Pelosi's remarks will embolden or chill dozens of moderate House Democrats who face withering criticisms of the health care proposal in visits with constituents and in national polls. Republican lawmaker unanimously oppose the health care proposals, and many GOP strategists believe voters will turn against Democrats in the November elections.

I'm not sure either. However, if we credit some of the supposedly-moderate Blue Dogs of actually believing, somewhat, in a bit of moderation, they might be resentful that archliberals from even more liberal districts are telling them to not only go against their own beliefs and consciences, but to be happy about losing their seats as they do so.

They might be a little annoyed that this heavily-botoxed leftist is so blithely unconcerned about their views and their careers.

Al Gore on ClimateGate: "The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules or took a few liberties with our female guests. We did. (Wink.)"— Ace

Al Gore just winked at Dean Wormer, going full-Otter on the CRU's and the IPCC's and GISS' chronic rule-breaking and corner-cutting.

But I know Eric "Otter" Stratton. I worked with Eric "Otter" Stratton. And you, Alphonse Gore, are no Eric "Otter" Stratton.

Al Gore says the Climate Cultists have made two -- count 'em, two errors, plus maybe a little understandable sloppiness with record-keeping and responding to FOIA requests.

I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion. But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes in the thousands of pages of careful scientific work over the last 22 years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In fact, the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere  as if it were an open sewer.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

But the scientific enterprise will never be completely free of mistakes. What is important is that the overwhelming consensus on global warming remains unchanged. It is also worth noting that the panels scientists  acting in good faith on the best information then available to them  probably underestimated the range of sea-level rise in this century, the speed with which the Arctic ice cap is disappearing and the speed with which some of the large glacial flows in Antarctica and Greenland are melting and racing to the sea.

Because these and other effects of global warming are distributed globally, they are difficult to identify and interpret in any particular location. For example, January was seen as unusually cold in much of the United States. Yet from a global perspective, it was the second-hottest January since surface temperatures were first measured 130 years ago.

Similarly, even though climate deniers have speciously argued for several years that there has been no warming in the last decade, scientists confirmed last month that the last 10 years were the hottest decade since modern records have been kept.

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere  thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as its important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.

Just on that last point: This is the go-to excuse for explaining away the snow, that heat actually fills the air with water vapor and yadda yadda yadda. It utterly fails to even acknowledge that this winter has not merely been snowy -- it has been very cold, too. It's not the case that it's warm but snowy. It's historically very cold too, something the "heat causes water vapor" dodge intentionally misses.

ClimateGate  This scandal began the latest round of revelations when thousands of leaked documents from Britain's East Anglia Climate Research Unit showed systematic suppression and discrediting of climate skeptics' views and discarding of temperature data, suggesting a bias for making the case for warming. Why do such a thing if, as global warming defenders contend, the "science is settled?"

FOIGate  The British government has since determined someone at East Anglia committed a crime by refusing to release global warming documents sought in 95 Freedom of Information Act requests. The CRU is one of three international agencies compiling global temperature data. If their stuff's so solid, why the secrecy?

ChinaGate  An investigation by the U.K.'s left-leaning Guardian newspaper found evidence that Chinese weather station measurements not only were seriously flawed, but couldn't be located. "Where exactly are 42 weather monitoring stations in remote parts of rural China?" the paper asked. The paper's investigation also couldn't find corroboration of what Chinese scientists turned over to American scientists, leaving unanswered, "how much of the warming seen in recent decades is due to the local effects of spreading cities, rather than global warming?" The Guardian contends that researchers covered up the missing data for years.

HimalayaGate  An Indian climate official admitted in January that, as lead author of the IPCC's Asian report, he intentionally exaggerated when claiming Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 in order to prod governments into action. This fraudulent claim was not based on scientific research or peer-reviewed. Instead it was originally advanced by a researcher, since hired by a global warming research organization, who later admitted it was "speculation" lifted from a popular magazine. This political, not scientific, motivation at least got some researcher funded.

...

SternGate  One excuse for imposing worldwide climate crackdown has been the U.K.'s 2006 Stern Report, an economic doomsday prediction commissioned by the government. Now the U.K. Telegraph reports that quietly after publication "some of these predictions had been watered down because the scientific evidence on which they were based could not be verified." Among original claims now deleted were that northwest Australia has had stronger typhoons in recent decades, and that southern Australia lost rainfall because of rising ocean temperatures. Exaggerated claims get headlines. Later, news reporters disclose the truth. Why is that?

SternGate II  A researcher now claims the Stern Report misquoted his work to suggest a firm link between global warming and more-frequent and severe floods and hurricanes. Robert Muir-Wood said his original research showed no such link. He accused Stern of "going far beyond what was an acceptable extrapolation of the evidence." We're shocked.

AmazonGate  The London Times exposed another shocker: the IPCC claim that global warming will wipe out rain forests was fraudulent, yet advanced as "peer-reveiwed" science. The Times said the assertion actually "was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise," "authored by two green activists" and lifted from a report from the World Wildlife Fund, an environmental pressure group. The "research" was based on a popular science magazine report that didn't bother to assess rainfall. Instead, it looked at the impact of logging and burning. The original report suggested "up to 40 percent" of Brazilian rain forest was extremely sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall, but the IPCC expanded that to cover the entire Amazon, the Times reported.

PeerReviewGate  The U.K. Sunday Telegraph has documented at least 16 nonpeer-reviewed reports (so far) from the advocacy group World Wildlife Fund that were used in the IPCC's climate change bible, which calls for capping manmade greenhouse gases.

RussiaGate  Even when global warming alarmists base claims on scientific measurements, they've often had their finger on the scale. Russian think tank investigators evaluated thousands of documents and e-mails leaked from the East Anglia research center and concluded readings from the coldest regions of their nation had been omitted, driving average temperatures up about half a degree.

Russia-Gate II  Speaking of Russia, a presentation last October to the Geological Society of America showed how tree-ring data from Russia indicated cooling after 1961, but was deceptively truncated and only artfully discussed in IPCC publications. Well, at least the tree-ring data made it into the IPCC report, albeit disguised and misrepresented.

U.S.Gate  If Brits can't be trusted, are Yanks more reliable? The U.S. National Climate Data Center has been manipulating weather data too, say computer expert E. Michael Smith and meteorologist Joesph D'Aleo. Forty years ago there were 6,000 surface-temperature measuring stations, but only 1,500 by 1990, which coincides with what global warming alarmists say was a record temperature increase. Most of the deleted stations were in colder regions, just as in the Russian case, resulting in misleading higher average temperatures.

IceGate  Hardly a continent has escaped global warming skewing. The IPCC based its findings of reductions in mountain ice in the Andes, Alps and in Africa on a feature story of climbers' anecdotes in a popular mountaineering magazine, and a dissertation by a Switzerland university student, quoting mountain guides. Peer-reviewed? Hype? Worse?

Only two errors, Gore?

At the current moment, there is no evidence whatsoever the earth has even warmed at all, because all of these guys conveniently destroy their data after compiling their alleged studies. What we have in hand is only their conclusions, with absolutely no vettable evidence backing it up whatsoever. The British Met (responsible for this sort of thing) must now reconstruct temperature records from the last 150 years independently, and from scratch, in order to even start the discussion with some sort of scientific basis.

Note to Al Gore: "I said so, that's why" is not a proper scientific basis for making a claim, even a small one.

So, at the moment, there is no evidence whatsoever that the planet has even warmed, and this evidence will not exist for at least two or three years as the Met undertakes its re-examination of the issue (this time, with documentation and data retained and reviewable by other scientists -- fancy that!).

How big of an impact has the Tea Party made? Enough of an impact that even Nancy Pelosi is now claiming to "share some views" with the Tea Partiers.

Which views?

Um... Well, how the Tea Partiers object to special interests in politics and are all fired up about the Citizens United ruling.
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Let's see if I have this straight: Nancy Pelosi actually "shares some views" with the Tea Partiers, at least when she seeks to court them. Meanwhile, when liberals wish to denigrate the Tea Party movement, they continue insisting the Tea Party "shares some views" with IRS kamikazee Andrew Joseph Stack III.

Frank Rich:

What made that kamikaze mission eventful was less the deranged act itself than the curious reaction of politicians on the right who gave it a pass  or, worse, flirted with condoning it. Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a Tea Party terrorist. But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner. That rant inspired like-minded Americans to create instant Facebook shrines to his martyrdom. Soon enough, some cowed politicians, including the newly minted Tea Party hero Scott Brown, were publicly empathizing with Stacks credo  rather than risk crossing the most unforgiving brigade in their base.

....

It is not glib or inaccurate to invoke Oklahoma City in this context, because the acrid stench of 1995 is back in the air. Two days before Stacks suicide mission, The Times published David Barstows chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement. Anyone who was cognizant during the McVeigh firestorm would recognize the old warning signs re-emerging from the mists of history. The Patriot movement. The New World Order, with its shadowy conspiracies hatched by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Sandpoint, Idaho. White supremacists. Militias.

Liberals continue reading "anti-government" as Tea Party/conservative, despite the fact that leftwing communists and anarchists are also quite "anti-government," just in a very different way.

And they continue to ignore the final statement in Stack's manifesto:

The communist creed: From each according to his ability to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility to each according to his greed.

Every G-20 or IMF summit features black-bandaned anarchists throwing stones through windows, throwing stones at policemen, and setting cars on fire. The leftist media never connects such people up with non-extremist politics; indeed, they are very careful never to even utter the word "leftist." They call such people, specifically, "anti-globalism protesters."

But of course they fall over themselves to connect up every possible bad actor with broader, non-extremist political movements on the right.

Even in the case of a guy who concludes his manifesto/suicide note with a communist slogan. So, apparently, much of the Tea Party movement is animated by a burning desire to impose a full communist system on the United States.

This, presumably, would be among the "views" of the Tea Party movement that Nancy Pelosi "shares."

Just one Democratic vote, and they can afford to lose up to nine. But it's more important than that, as the legislation would, apparently, have to be passed out of his committee first. And it's more important than even that, because to do this at all, the House needs to act first, and pass the Senate bill, and they only want to do that with the assurance the Senate will be passing a budget-busting reconciliation measure shortly thereafter -- and Conrad seems to be sowing a lot of doubt that will happen.

Vid at the link, but here's the transcript:

 reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It wont work. It wont work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation. It was designed for deficit reduction The major package of health care reform cannot move through the reconciliation process. It will not work It will not work because of the Byrd rule which says anything that doesnt score for budget purposes has to be eliminated. That would eliminate all the delivery system reform, all the insurance market reform, all of those things the experts tell us are really the most important parts of this bill. The only possible role that I can see for reconciliation would be make modest changes in the major package to improve affordability, to deal with what share of Medicaid expansion the federal government pays, those kinds of issues, which is the traditional role for reconciliation in health care.

If the Democrats are looking for an exit strategy (and note, when it comes to big expansions of government, the Democrats do not shy away from declaring as Bush did in Iraq that the exit strategy is "victory"), then this will do as well as any other. Liberals can crow that they tried their hearts out, but this one Senator from South Dakota sold them out.

And that even works for Kent Conrad, because, hailing from South Dakota, being the guy who tanked the reconciliation route should be a small net positive.

I was going to make this part of my US-Canada game post (3pm eastern on NBC) but I think it deserves some attention of its own.

US hockey GM Brian Burke made unabashed patriotism part of the teams ethic from the start. To that end the US team has partnered with Operation Homefront to pair each player with a wounded warrior.

"The real heroes in America don't wear hockey uniforms, they wear police uniforms, they wear camo, they wear fire uniforms, and we want our players to understand that what we do is small potatoes compared to what those people do," Burke said Saturday.

So it should come as no surprise that there has been a military component to Team USA's preparations here in Vancouver.

Burke and USA Hockey joined forces with Operation Homefront and had a wounded soldier adopt each member of Team USA. The soldiers sent packages, including letters of encouragement to the players. Those packages were placed in the American dressing room at Canada Hockey Place earlier this week.

"We are very proud of the military in our country and it's part of what we do," Burke said.

If these American heroes helps wealthy athletes win a game, that's all well and good. The most important thing however is what it means to the heroes to be part of the Olympic hockey team. Consider Marine Staff Sergeant John Stanz.

Stanz returned home in December with life-changing injuries suffered in Afghanistan. Stanz has been selected as one of the 25 wounded warriors to be represented by members of the U.S. Olympic hockey team. Ryan Miller will skate for Staff Sergeant Stanz.

"Oh it's awesome. Obviously things don't go too well all the time for me, but that's one definite awesome thing," said Stanz.

Miller said, "Great for our club to show that we really care about what's going on with our armed forces."

...Each player is receiving inspirational gifts from his wounded warrior. Stanz sent Miller a Marine unit hat that says, "Millertime," a Marine challenge coin bearing John's name, a bullet bracelet like the one John Stanz always wears, and a letter.

Stanz said, "I told him good luck and everything and I'll be here rooting for him."

In turn, Stanz will get a jersey from Miller and other items, but of course, the biggest 'get' would be owning a little piece of an Olympic medal.

"I don't really understand why all this great stuff is happening to me, but definitely appreciate it, you know?" said Stanz.

And that right there is why the program is worth it no matter what else happens. Stanz is from Buffalo and says he hopes to meet with Miller after the games. I'm gonna bet win or lose today, that's a given.

This partnership isnt just pr or long distance pen pals. U.S. Army Ranger Captain Chad Fleming (who lost his leg in combat but returned to lead his men on a later tour in Iraq) was invited to address the team last night in preparation for todays game.

No sooner did the U.S. Olympic Team earn a berth into the gold medal game at the 2010 Olympics, was U.S. Army Ranger Captain Chad Fleming called back into duty as a motivating force for those players and coaches in Vancouver.

After arriving in Seattle from Washington D.C. Saturday morning, Fleming rented a car and began the 125-mile trek to Vancouver in order to serve his countrymen -- yet again. Heck, a 125-mile car ride is nothing compared to what Fleming has been through.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that he got the phone call either -- he's been a regular speaker within the Team USA dressing room since orientation camp in August. There was no way he was missing this opportunity.

Following Friday's 6-1 victory over Finland in the tournament semifinals, Team USA General Manager Brian Burke and USA Hockey's Assistant Executive Director Jim Johannson contacted Fleming and Operation Homefront Chairman Rob Wolford and invited them to the team's private dinner on Saturday at 8 p.m. (ET).

"I just know they need me, so I have to get there," Fleming told NHL.com at the time he was some 60 miles from his destination in Vancouver.

...Even more troubling for unions, their membership in the private sector fell 10 percent during Obama's first year in office to a historic low of 7.2 percent. A poll this past week from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 41 percent of those surveyed have a favorable view of unions, compared with 58 percent in a similar survey in 2007...

Well, what did they expect? This is after all, a historic presentdency. Historic things should not be unexpected.

Underground Nuclear tests
Okay I have to admit that there's just something about nuclear tests - even the quiet underground ones - that makes me happy. Where other people see death and destruction, I see the power that comes from understanding nature, using our tool-making skill to harness a little bit of the fundamental forces of nature, and the inspiration of fear in our enemies. So ultimately it is a triumph of the human spirit.

Hawaii appeared to escape any major tsunami unleashed by the giant earthquake off the coast of Chile, giving residents and tourists relief even as they remained on guard Saturday afternoon.

Tsunami surges of six to 12 inches in height hit the "Big Island" of Hawaii beginning at 11:38 a.m. local time, 34 minutes later than oceanographers previously forecast, said Bill Hanson, administrative officer with the Hawaii County Civil Defense.

Those were far lower than the waves of as high as 14 that feet some officials had predicted. Mr. Hanson said that while the tsunami threat was not entirely over, the fact that no large surges have hit so far means more destructive ones are less likely.

"It's not over until the fat lady sings, but it's a good sign so far," Mr. Hanson said.

The UK Independence Party seems to be the conservative/libertarian option in the UK. They are in favor of tight border control, free markets and are adamantly opposed to the UK's European entanglements*.

They don't have any members in the UK Parliament but have a couple of seats in the European Parliament which they use to more or less harangue the Euro bureaucrats. Like this....

*I haven't run extensive checks on everything about the UKIP so I don't want to hear from the net nanny saying I've embraced evil or something. They seem alright and they certainly aren't the cretins from the BNP.

Overall, 43% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. That is the lowest level of total approval yet measured for this President. Fifty-five percent (55%) disapprove. The President earns approval from 76% of Democrats while 86% of Republicans disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 38% approve and 61% disapprove. The President earns approval from 37% of men and 49% of women.

Data for these updates is collected via nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, just two-thirds of the interviews for todays update were collected following the Presidents health-care summit. Tomorrow morning (Sunday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the summit.

Tsunami warnings generated for Chile and Peru across all Pacific islands and the Pacific rim, including most of Central and South America and as far as Australia and Antarctica.

Article says the biggest one ever recorded in Chile, a 9.5 in 1960 generated waves that killed as far away as Hawaii, the Philippines, and Japan.

DrewM.: Having spent some time in Chile I just wanted to add a few thoughts.

First, Chileans are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They are friendly, kind, hard working and almost everyone I met loved America. They are also a very proud people.

Second, this is an area that has suffered from earthquakes before. Walking through Santiago you notice a strange mix of buildings in terms of styles and age. When I asked about it I was told that it was because when earthquakes, some survived and some collapsed. When they collapsed, new ones were put up giving you this odd mix of buildings.

Reminders of the power of nature, especially geological are all over the country. I went up into the Andes and you can drive off into huge side canyons. There were boulders that were the size of office buildings and dozens of them in each canyon. It was amazing.

On a political note...they are not all that far removed from the Pinochet dictatorship. They are very proud of the political and economic progress they have made and rightly so.

It's a quirky and in someway strange country but for the most part it's a beautiful and welcoming one. I pray they will be ok.

Snowy night in the northeast and not much news, so Canada-Slovakia for the right to play the US in the Olympic game. 9:35 eastern on CNBC.

Canada just had it's heartbroken when their womens curling team failed to close the deal (twice!) against the snowbacks from Sweden. Can it happen again? Mike Milbury says they have a chance, however small, which is funny since he's not exactly a fan of euro-hockey. Jeremy Roenick on the other hand say no way, no how.